Craig Silverstein grew a decade with Google

Verne Kopytoff, Chronicle Staff Writer

Published
4:00 am PDT, Sunday, September 7, 2008

** FOR RELEASE WEEKEND SEPTEMBER 6-7 ** Google Technology Director Craig Silverstein, who was Google's first employee, sits on his beanbag chair in his office at Google headquarters in Mountain View, Calif., Wednesday, Aug. 27, 2008. When Larry Page and Sergey Brin founded Google Inc. on Sept. 7, 1998, they had little more than their ingenuity, four computers and an investor's $100,000 bet on their belief that an Internet search engine could change the world. (AP Photo/Paul Sakuma) less

** FOR RELEASE WEEKEND SEPTEMBER 6-7 ** Google Technology Director Craig Silverstein, who was Google's first employee, sits on his beanbag chair in his office at Google headquarters in Mountain View, Calif., ... more

Photo: Paul Sakuma, AP

Photo: Paul Sakuma, AP

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** FOR RELEASE WEEKEND SEPTEMBER 6-7 ** Google Technology Director Craig Silverstein, who was Google's first employee, sits on his beanbag chair in his office at Google headquarters in Mountain View, Calif., Wednesday, Aug. 27, 2008. When Larry Page and Sergey Brin founded Google Inc. on Sept. 7, 1998, they had little more than their ingenuity, four computers and an investor's $100,000 bet on their belief that an Internet search engine could change the world. (AP Photo/Paul Sakuma) less

** FOR RELEASE WEEKEND SEPTEMBER 6-7 ** Google Technology Director Craig Silverstein, who was Google's first employee, sits on his beanbag chair in his office at Google headquarters in Mountain View, Calif., ... more

Photo: Paul Sakuma, AP

Craig Silverstein grew a decade with Google

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Few people have had a closer view of Google's stratospheric ascent than Craig Silverstein.

As Employee No. 1, he worked shoulder to shoulder with founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin to build their search engine and remains on staff 10 years later as technology director.

"I certainly didn't imagine it would be the size it is today," said Silverstein, 35. "What are the odds?

Anyone who enters a query on Google surrounded by quotation marks to get an exact match is using Silverstein's work. But mostly, he has worked behind the scenes on internal technology and establishing how products are created.

Google's founders hired Silverstein, who had an extensive background in search engine technology, shortly after they established their company. He had helped them when Google was merely a Stanford graduate school project, operated out of their dorm.

The company's first official office was a rented home in Menlo Park, which Google bought in 2006 to preserve some of its history. Google occupied a few rooms and, occasionally, the garage, in typical Silicon Valley startup fashion.

When he started work, Silverstein figured he would last four or five years at Google before burning out. Or perhaps the company would evolve to the point where he wouldn't feel welcome anymore.

"None of those things really happened," Silverstein said.

Given its rapid growth, Google has inevitably changed, he said. The everyday details of running the business are more formalized now, he said, adding, "It's become easier to take vacations."

Silverstein took issue with the idea that an employee can no longer make as big an impact as before. In fact, he said, they can do more because of the expansive resources now available to them, including additional staff and money.

Quitting isn't immediately on the horizon for Silverstein, who said he might stop eventually to finish graduate school or be a stay-at-home dad. But he still believes that search needs significant improvement and that it might take 100 years to realize.

"We need to make search as good as a human answering a search request," Silverstein said. "We need to be like the computer on 'Star Trek,' and we are very, very far from that."